6 minute read
ORCHESTRA UNDER THE MOON
A spiritual lament
Paraorchestra – a large-scale orchestra of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians – is performing in Bath Abbey on 8 December, an event rescheduled from its original date at The Bath Festival last year. Millie Bruce-Watt finds out more from conductor and artistic director Charles Hazlewood.
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Abright shining light in the music industry today is Paraorchestra – the world’s only integrated orchestra of professional disabled and non-disabled musicians. Founded in 2012 by award-winning international conductor and musical revolutionary Charles Hazlewood, the Paraorchestra made its debut performance at the Paralympics’ closing ceremony in London. As the world’s eyes watched an orchestra of 18 world-class musicians play alongside Coldplay, a dream was born, a ripple of hope was sent across the world and a powerful message played out – music is a birthright not a luxury.
Almost a decade later and the Paraorchestra has grown into a 90-piece ensemble with around 40 musicians identifying as disabled. From Glastonbury Festival to Carlyon Bay, the orchestra has been spreading the word, encouraging musicians to stand up and be counted. They are a shining example of the joy and the brilliance that emerges when positive change is achieved.
The musical event at the Abbey
On 8 December Paraorchestra, conducted by Charles Hazlewood, is performing Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs alongside acclaimed soprano Victoria Oruwari in the deep, vast, and dark splendour of Bath Abbey. Cathartic and hauntingly beautiful, this harmonic ‘spiritual minimalist’ composition is an astonishing meditation on loss and transcendence.
Each of the three movements of Symphony of Sorrowful Songs features a Polish lament, including a message inscribed on the wall of a Gestapo prison cell from a teenage girl to her mother, and a mother’s folk song about her son lost in the Silesian civil war. Sung in Polish, it’s an evocative work that brings both tears and joy, taking audiences on an uplifting journey through grief and solace. The power of the piece has not gone unrecognised –a recording by soprano Dawn Upshaw and David Zinman with the London Sinfonietta in 2016 topped the classical music charts and reached number six on the mainstream UK album chart, selling over a million copies.
Charles Hazelwood explains the passion and purpose of this musical installation. “What better place to share this work than Bath Abbey? Deep within this astonishing and magical space the orchestra will be placed right in the centre of the nave, in a circle, facing inwards. Like all our projects, making orchestral music accessible and presenting it in new and unexpected ways is fundamental.”
This style and performance set-up encourages you to move around the orchestra and explore the abbey, observing and listening to the music from different perspectives for a fully immersive experience.
Enhancing the performance will be Luke Jerram’s incredible touring exhibition, Museum of the Moon, which will be centre stage at Bath Abbey, and on display from 20 November – 24 December. The touring piece of artwork by Luke Jerram has been making an impact all over the world. The internally lit moon measures seven metres in diameter and features detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface.
An innovative musical vision
In his 30-year career, Hazlewood has conducted some of the greatest in the classical repertoire with some of the best orchestras in the world. He’s been a significant presence on British television and radio for decades, and his innovations continue to attract new audiences to orchestral music as he reimagines what an orchestra is. The Paraorchestra, however, clearly holds a special place in his heart. His mission is clear and concise – he wants to bring the ever-more modern joy of orchestral music to the 21st-century audience and, in doing so, change lives and communities for the better.
Charles Hazlewood and the Paraorchestra. Photograph by Kirsten McTernan
Viola player Tilly Chester who has been a member of Paraorchestra since its inception Photograph by Kirsten McTernan
Museum of the Moon by Luke Jerram, photograph by James Billings
“Paraorchestra is the only orchestra in the world that is a reflection of modern society. The starting point came for it when my youngest daughter was born with cerebral palsy. Very quickly it got me thinking, I’ve had a 30-year career conducting orchestras around the world and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of musicians who are disabled that I’ve encountered – it’s absurd, you can’t tell me that there aren’t millions of prodigiously gifted musicians who happen to identify as disabled. Where is their platform? Where is their voice? It’s not just that – of course it’s about equity – but it’s also about not missing out on talent. At the moment, we’re missing out on millions of talented people because we haven’t got a system in place which allows them to take part.”
Hazlewood has carved a reputation as quite the maverick when it comes to mixing musical genres – pushing the creative boundaries in every way possible, to serve as a template for generations of forwardthinking artists, and inspiring elation. “The orchestral industry, as it currently is, is very much about the custodians of a tradition – and there’s nothing wrong with that – we all need our Brahms and our Beethoven – but at the same time there needs to be more forward thinking and forward moving. You show me any other kind of aspect of human experience that hasn’t continued to evolve with current technologies, and why would you want to miss out on the wonder of analogue synthesisers or digital instruments? It makes no sense.
“The orchestra is alive and well in everyone’s living rooms if you think about it – all video games invariably have big orchestral backing, and all those movie scores. It’s just that people having a live experience of it is rare and there aren’t that many, perhaps – if you look at the population as whole – that will darken the door of the Royal Festival Hall and that’s a shame. We really hope we can bring about change.”
In January of this year, Hazlewood became Sky Arts’ ambassador for music – one of five ambassadors appointed – which now marks Paraorchestra as the channel’s flagship orchestra. As part of this, Sky Arts will invest £60,000 over two years into the musicians. This has created a musicians-in-residence scheme that, under Hazlewood’s support and mentoring, enables Paraorchestra to cultivate some of the extraordinary D/deaf and disabled talent within the ensemble.
“Sky Arts are doing what they can out in the communities, catalysing change and inspiration and fresh possibilities so it seemed like a natural fit for me to take on an ambassadorial role, taking Paraorchestra with me. It will also give us an opportunity to reach out to people who may never come to one of our gigs.”
Paraorchestra is always on the look-out for emerging talent and it is of utmost importance to support those joining the family. “Every 18 months to two years we do a musicians call-out, which is specifically for musicians who identify as disabled. Our most recent call gave us 12 new musicians so each time we’re adding more to our flock.”
Charles Hazlewood will also be fronting a new series in 2022 exploring the 21st-century orchestra. “It will look at all the innovations that we have discovered are possible in terms of placing an orchestra front and centre, in real people’s lives, normal people’s lives, every person’s life,” says Hazlewood. n
Symphony of Sorrowful Songs with Paraorchestra takes place on 8 December at 7.30pm at Bath Abbey; paraorchestra.com; tickets £25; book through bathfestivals.org.uk
Charles Hazlewood
